That the investigation of paternity shall be authorized like that of maternity.
That the seduction of an unmarried woman under twenty-five shall be severely punished.
That no unmarried woman can be registered among the public women before twenty-five years old, and that she shall be put into the house of correction if she abandons herself to prostitution before this age.
That every abandoned woman who receives a man under twenty-five years of age shall be punished with fine and imprisonment, and that the penalty shall be terrible if she is diseased.
READER. It will be said that paternity cannot be proved.
AUTHOR. I do not deny that it may be possible that the father attributed to the natural child will not be the true one; but it will be necessary to establish by proofs that he has rendered himself liable to be reputed such: it is the probability of paternity in marriage extended to paternity out of marriage. So much the worse for men who suffer themselves to be caught! it is shameful to attach impunity to the most disorderly and subversive of selfish desires; women must no longer bear alone the burden of natural children, and no longer be tempted to abandon them.
READER. But what if it be proved that a married man has rendered himself liable to become a father outside his household.
AUTHOR. This should be first a case of divorce; next, of punishment for him and his accomplice. As to the child, the man should bear the charge of it in concert with the mother.
READER. These are indeed Draconian laws!
AUTHOR. Do you not see that corruption is shutting us in, body and soul; and that if we do not create a vigorous reaction against it by the severity of the laws, the reform of education, and the awakening of the ideal, our society will be, ere long, only an immense brothel?